Andrew began his talk by very graciously acknowledging that many other people have contributed data that informed his paper. Andrew’s work is based on research began by William Barrow, a paper chemist at the Library of Congress until the 1960’s. Barrow’s research on books tried to draw a connection between physical properties and chemical content. He had collected about 1000 books published between 1500 and the 19th century, and he took various measurements such as fold endurance, pH, alum content, etc. He tried to draw connections between those sets of data to predict the ageing characteristics of the paper. This collection was obtained by LoC in the 1970s, and are still used for destructive testing today. But where Barrow used macro and micro scale measurements, Andrew looks to the middle ground: polymer chemistry. For that, he uses size exclusion chromatography, or SEC.
SEC measures the degree of polymerization of cellulose using a roughly 1mm squared sample size. (It may be helpful to think of degree of polymerization as the molecular weight.) The degree of polymerization of a sample can be compared to known references. It should also be noted that papers have a mixture of molecules of different sizes, and SEC provides a distribution curve. The more large molecules in a sample, the less degraded the cellulose, meaning that the paper is in better condition. Andrew discussed several examples of treatments of iron gall ink on paper where SEC was used to show the effects of those treatments on the papers.
Barrow’s research indicated that pH was the best indication of the future physical properties of paper. Andrew took about 80 samples from Barrow’s collection and confirmed that the molecular weights of paper correlate with pH (when the pH drops, the molecular weight drops). Andrew then looked to see if the molecular weight corresponded to physical properties; with newer papers, the molecular weight does tend to be smaller. Poor tear resistance also corresponds to low molecular weight. In general, he found that the molecular weight determined by SEC is a better indicator than pH for future physical properties for both newer and older books.
SEC certainly has advantages. The sample size is ridiculously small. Tells you about the physical building blocks of the paper, giving a better idea of what’s in it and what state the cellulose is in. There are some disadvantages to overcome before this technique is in every lab. The test itself takes a week to do. It requires extremely expensive equipment and organic solvents, and one must have the technical knowledge to interpret the data. Andrew’s ultimate goal is to turn this into a rapid technique that’s affordable, so that the molecular weight distributions of an object can be included in an object’s record and be pulled up by a barcode. That’s an exciting prospect!
Andrew’s work presents a very interesting analytical option that future conservators might have access to. It would be nice to have a predicting model for the degradation of library objects. But it would be even more interesting to see the effects of treatment on paper. It is important that conservators continue to check our own work, and I’m glad to have assistance with that from scientists like Andrew.
Minor correction for posterity: Barrow did his research at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, not LC.